Vicki's Tech Hub

  Staying current on relevant technology for classroom use takes time. Even with the best intentions, no one can be an expert on every new technology and how to integrate it into the classroom. That is where blogs, articles, conferences, expos, and annotated bibliographies help forward-thinking educators. This blog post is about annotated bibliographies and how they help educators stay at the forefront of emerging technology trends. Annotated bibliographies provide an overview of the topic and identify connections between the resources (Pope-Ruark et al., 2019.). One type of annotated bibliography provides connections to the real-world applications of the identified resources. That is the type of annotated bibliography we will discuss in this post. An annotated bibliography includes a resource and provides a summary or evaluation of each resource. The annotated bibliography provided in this post includes the resource, the technology source presented in the article, what topic the s...

  A few months ago I had the opportunity to go to a Tech Expo where I learned about geocaching. Geocaching is the technological equivalent of hide-and-seek! It is an outdoor activity where participants use GPS devices or mobile devices to hide and find containers called "geocaches" or "caches" at specific locations marked by the container's coordinates (Fornasini et al., 2020). As a participant at the Expo, I was able to try geocaching with my cell phone in the building! I must admit it was a fun activity and I can see why people love it. (Open Clipart, n.d.) After the Expo, I started thinking about how can I adapt geocaching for work and is anyone in either school where I work already doing it?  Geocaching in education – called Educaching – is a way to engage students in authentic, real-world application of skills and technology (Bragg, 2014).  I inquired in both schools where I work to see if anyone was already using educaching and one teacher sent me a sketch...